Originally Posted By Beaumandy How much are we giving to Africa this year? Or Eqypt, or Spain, France, Russia, Germany, or anywhere else? You can't stop funding the Iraq war, but you sure can stop giving money away to countries who stab you in the back anyway for at least a year or two. There are plenty of places to make cuts. I know one thing.... giving the govertment officials in Louisiana any money without making sure it goes to the right place is about as smart as giving a bank robber the keys to a bank.
Originally Posted By kramer222 How much goes to Africa? You tell me. Who has stabbed us in the back? How? Where do you make cuts?
Originally Posted By mnsharp <<He actually, quite recently, said he didn't want a tax cut.>> You seriously take his lies and believe them? I'm not saying that he wants another tax cut, but if he thinks the rich should be paying more, then lead by example and pay more. Disneyman55, if you think that it has to be paid somewhere, the answer is not raising taxes, period. It's budget cuts, we should be spending our time trying to get these Porkers in congress to make a buget that makes sense, not take more money out of my pocket. If you give them more money, does that mean they will spend it wisely? If they aren't budgeting right now, what makes you think they will with more money? Congress has to know that they have to have a decent budget and if they don't we wont vote for them, "Evil Racist NeoCon" Republican or "Peaceloving, never do anything wrong, whites that know what it means to be a minority, down with whitie and the rich democrates"
Originally Posted By Disneyman55 Said it before, say it again. I don't want to more taxes. But the GOP mandate when we voted them into office was to cut spending. They are failing at thier duty. We had better pay for our foreign adventurism one way or another.
Originally Posted By gadzuux So the GOP "solution" is to cut spending ... in order to spend $200 billion on gulf coast reconstruction. That's not cutting spending. It's taking allocated funds for one thing and reallocating them for another. And yet iraq war funding is untouchable. Presumeably so is afghanistan and other various military war spending. What's left? Schools, healthcare, elderly. We're going to take money from 'human services' (read: poor, sick, old) in order to aid katrina victims (read: poor, sick, old). Why would we do this? In order to protect the tax cuts on the wealthiest among us? Call me a democrat, but I think that clinton's right - if spending is going up dramatically, income has to follow suit. Anything else is irresponsible. And all kidding aside, what do people think prompted delay to say that "all the fat has been cut from the budget"? This isn't usually something you'd expect to hear from GOP leadership. When cuts come, they come on the backs of the recipients of social services - the poor, sick and elderly. Here's an idea - let's maintain our social services for the poor, sick and elderly, and tax the citizens to pay for them. Revolutionary, ain't it?
Originally Posted By kramer222 I'll take lying about someone's personal life over a recession any day of the week, pal.
Originally Posted By ElKay >>"But if the middle east was ever going to change he had to go Elkay. That is not unnecessary unless you are someone who thinks letting Saddam get WMD's was OK. Every report out there, after the invasion, says Saddam would have had them in a few short years. I'm talking nukes.<< PROVE IT, Beau. By almost every reputable account since the fall of Baghdad, everything you said was wrong. Saddam was boxed in and even with the shennagins of the Oil for Food Program, he wasn't able to use the extra billions for anything but to pay out bribes to keep the country together and build more palaces. The UN nuclear survey group kept reporting that Iraq had, if fact, dismantled his nuke program. They asked the US to hold off starting the war for a few months more in order to verify that fact since they were banned from the country for a couple of years. Saddam wasn't close to making a bomb. The Niger evidence trotted out by Bush was proved false, hence the outting of Victoria Plame--IF Bush was right, it would have served NO purpose in outting a valuble CIA WMD analyst. Regarding the rehabb of the Mid East, there's not much substantial change directly attributed to the overthrow of Saddam. Our self-defense overthrow of the Taliban and hunt (so far unsuccessful) of bin Laden is the only area that has proved advantagious for the US and Mid East. Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, and other countries realize the dire threat that Islamic fundamentalism posed for their own self intrests. Unjustifiably overthowing a sitting Islamic leader in Saddam negates most of the good we got from "liberating" Afganistan. Now, our fair weather allies in the region have to think twice about cozying up with the US "crusaders." Regarding Israel, they essentially returned Gaza as a military expedience to consolate their more important interests in annexing portions of the West Bank and remove a security headache. IF Arafat was still kicking, chances are that Israel wouldn't have turned over Gaza. They are rolling the dice, hoping the new Palistinian government would be more willing to work with Israel and be more pre-occupied with trying to manage their own headache in Gaza. On the otherside, Bush has stirred up a hornet's nest in Iran, embolden the Shiites in the region to exercise their power, scarring the Kurds in thinking it about time to go it alone or be wiped out. Sure, things are changing in the Mid East, but nobody, especially Bush knows how it will come out in the long run.
Originally Posted By ElKay Dirk_Diggler_65, your post #10 lacks any credibility coming from Bill O'reilly. Cite me the same data coming from a non-neocon or Lefty source and I'll consider it. The fact is the US poverty rate has been rising in the past three years, dispite a so-so recovery for the rest of the country. The rich get richer and the poor are DROWNING!
Originally Posted By ElKay mnsharp:"I just think it is absolutely hilarious this arguement about tax cuts. If Bush cuts taxes - FOR EVERYONE - then it's only for the rich. If he raises taxes then he is an evil neocon that doesn't care about the people." For one thing it's true. If you cut taxes for the wealthy and the poor at the same rate. The wealthy would a huge advantage, since they would be getting a larger amount "back" than the middle class or the poor. The upper brackets could pretty much buy a new luxury car from just the savings, while the lower brackets would only get enough to make a single car payment or a one month bus pass. Bush's proclivities to spend wildly, but not raise taxes will likely takes us back to the "good old days" of the mid 1970's when the bills started to come due for the Vietnam War and the country was shocked by the oil crisis. Recall, Johnson and Nixon likewise refused to raise taxes in order to pay for the war back then. We're accruing upwards of half a trillion dollars just on the Iraq War and now Katrina with a regime that refused to even consider raising taxes to pay even a small portion. That's just going to be added to the Nat'l. Debt and bonds will have to be sold to China, since they are the only ones flush with cash. Recall in the late '70's and '80's we financed our ballooning debt by borrowing from Japan when they were flush with cash. Japan was and is an ally. Today Japan's economy is in the doldrums and the Chinese are now flush with cash selling us cheap goods we no longer make ourselves. Can you likewise say that China has our best interest at stake? Face it, neocons are just happy to cut programs that help the poor, it's no myth. That's where the ax will first fall when Bush tries to bail out his shortfall for Katrina and Iraq. The poor will most likely pray for a disaster in their inner city neighborhoods in order to get a shot at disaster relief. If you don't believe me, recall that Bush Admin. announced recently that they were going to waive the Depression era law that required companies doing Federally funded work from paying prevailing wages. Tell me how does that help the poor, homeless people from getting back on their feet? If the disaster reconstruction projects are just paying minimum or sub-minimum wages how are the workers going to be able to afford re-built homes or even find decent rentals? This policy only helps large construction firms like Haliburton and Bechtel in increasing their profit margins by reducing wage costs. Would it happen any other way under a Republican Admin.?
Originally Posted By Dirk_Diggler_65 >Dirk_Diggler_65, your post #10 lacks any credibility coming from Bill O'reilly. Cite me the same data coming from a non-neocon or Lefty source and I'll consider it.< F.Y.I. Bill O'Reilly is not a neocon. His reporting is fair and those numbers are on the money. Whether or not you believe it makes no difference to me.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<Dirk_Diggler_65, your post #10 lacks any credibility coming from Bill O'reilly. Cite me the same data coming from a non-neocon or Lefty source and I'll consider it.>> Elkay, O'Reilly is hardly a neocon and there is a reason his show is by FAR # 1 on cable TV news while CNN and the other left leaning networks are flatlined. I bet you can't tell us one thing O'Reilly has ever lied about just like you can't provide anything Bush has lied about without getting into crazy conspiracies and crop circles. America see's through it. It's why at the end of the day in the quiet and privacy of their voting booth they don't vote for liberals.
Originally Posted By ElKay Dabob: "The highway bill? That ship done sailed. (And though the crew was bipartisan, Republicans were at the helm). Stop all foreign aid? Most of our foreign aid is military these days, and the Bush people will never go for that." Excellent observations! What Beau doesn't realize only reading wacko neocon tirades is that the pork barrel Highway Bill was a pre-'06 election valentine for the contributors in the Republican Congressional districts shilling for contributions, next year. Go ahead, Beau, try and take away the obscene pet projects from the likes of Ted Stevens of Alaska and his bridge to "nowhere"? Better you try to take away a bone from a pit bull that hasn't eaten since the election of '04. As for foreign aid, this is a hoary old canard from the "neo-Knnow Nothing Party." As Dabob mentioned most of our foreign aid is in the form of military grants that can only be used to buy US made weapons. I believe that both Israel and Egypt get something like $2 billion each, but it's not in the form of food stamps, but used to maintain their cool peace demeanor for the past 24 years. Are we going to really cut just $4 Billion when we are looking at half a trillion deficit? The Israel/Egypt aid package is something like half of our expenditures for the REST of the world. So were're talking about $8 billion? Don't we spend something like a billion a month in Iraq? Beau and Bush (2 Ps in a pod) clearly don't know where the money is being spent and only base their ideas from fringe idealoges. That's why Bush thinks we can spend like crazy and grow himself out of a deficit. The Congressional Dems wrangled an agreement with the GOP members and the first Bush Admin. to cooporate with a "pay as you go" program where both sides agreed to only propose spending if they could find another place in the budget to cut. That sort of agreement is not likely given the hubris the second Bush Admin. threw it's weight around in his first term and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq quagmire. Bush would have to actually pull out of Iraq, but not Afganistan, in order to bring Dems onboard for a similar agreement, but Bush would never do that and more than half of the Cong. GOP members would agree to that either. Bush is in a no-win situation either raise taxes to keeping fighting in Iraq AND rebuild the Gulf States or Fight in Iraq, rebuild the South, but go into super debt by not raising taxes. Either way the middle class will get screwed, royally.
Originally Posted By ElKay mnsharp: "You're 100% right, pay OUR bills. Borrowing is not the answer, nor is raising taxes. Here's one thought, why not make the people that live in flood zones at least somewhat responsible. These people in New Orleans think it's the federal governments job to protect them from hurricanes?" Oh right, change the rules of the "game" afterwards. A typical Republican, who says they don't like poor people? How do YOU get off saying that when just last year (yes, an election year, no less) the Federal gov't. lavished tons of $$$$$$$$$$ on the recovery and reconstruction of those Floridians? Is it something more than aiding a state that the President's brother is in charge of? Don't forget that the Federal gov't. was responsible for the building and maintenance of the levees that kept New Orleans and it's vital port for MidWestern Grain and the southern oil infrastructure intact. It wasn't the residents of NO forgetting to turnoff their bathroom sinks that caused the flooding. Don't forget all of those now destitude Republicans in Mississippi. Are you going to tell them to "suck it up" and don't cry to your Uncle Sam to bail you out for being so stupid as to live in an area that's prone to hurricanes? What about the New Yorkers that died on 9/11. Aren't they some how partly responsible for working and living in an area that might be a target? Didn't the Bush Admin. give a lavish death benefit to the families who lost loved ones in order for a promise not to sue the air lines? Isn't that a terrible precident? Could it be that almost all of those were middle class or wealthy people (and White to boot)? Aren't the poor dunces that lost everything in NO, Black? Sheesh, neocons!
Originally Posted By ElKay "But on the flip side of the coin, Iraq has been expensive. Bush has increased the federal budget, just as he did the Texas budget. Again, I am not a proponent of taxes, but this has to be paid for somewhere. If the neo-cons want to participate in Democratic Trotskyism, they better think of some way to pay for it. And for the record, 250 million for that bridge won't even cut a sliver out of the cost of Iraq and Katrina." Well said Disneyman55!
Originally Posted By ElKay "I bet you can't tell us one thing O'Reilly has ever lied about just like you can't provide anything Bush has lied about without getting into crazy conspiracies and crop circles." I guess you'r memory is fading, this board has been through O'relly's lies. It worse than Mike Brownie's resume. The most funny one was his claim to have grown up in a working class neighborhood on Long Island when he grew up in a middle class. Or his inability to know the difference between a Peabody or a Polk award. Especially when it was awarded AFTER he left the show. It doesn't count to correct the mistake after you've been outted as a fibber. Try this one for size, Beau. <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200502080004" target="_blank">http://mediamatters.org/items/ 200502080004</a> Keith Oberman:"It was about the Super Bowl program and Bill O'Reilly. The Fact or Fiction host and noted loofah user wrote the so-called end piece of the score card sold at yesterday's little game. He waxed poetic about the inspiration that his own football career at Marist College in New York provided observing that he once punted a ball backwards. But that, quoting here, "I won the national punting title for my division as a senior." O'Reilly concludes that "I guess you could say the end zone was the beginning of the no-spin zone." But Mr. O'Reilly has done a little spinning of his own here. Others might call it resume padding. The football office at Marist told me today that football was not a varsity sport there until 1978 -- seven years after O'Reilly graduated. When he played, it was a so-called club sport where players paid all their own expenses, and schedules and, most importantly, statistical record keeping were haphazard. So when he says he was the top punter in his division in the country in 1970, it does not mean what it sounds like. He was not in the NCAA Division I or II or the smaller-college NAIA Division I or Division II. O'Reilly in Marist played in something called the National Club Football Association. So writing in the Super Bowl program that you won the punting championship in your division would be like me writing in one of my articles in one of the World Series programs that I led the nation's high school baseball players in on-base percentage in 1973." What about this: <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230006" target="_blank">http://mediamatters.org/items/ 200412230006</a> " 1. O'Reilly falsely claimed Bush didn't oppose 9-11 Commission. O'Reilly defended President George W. Bush from a Kerry-Edwards '04 TV ad highlighting Bush's opposition to creation of the 9-11 Commission by denying that Bush had ever opposed the commission. In fact, Bush did oppose the creation of the 9-11 Commission. (10/21/04) 2. O'Reilly falsely claimed Iraq had ricin. O'Reilly responded to a caller to his radio show by defending the Iraq war: "They did have ricin up there in the north -- so why are you discounting that so much?" In fact, the Duelfer report (the final report of the Iraqi Survey Group, led by Charles A. Duelfer, which conducted the search for weapons in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion) indicates that Iraq did not have ricin. (10/19/04) 3. O'Reilly repeated discredited claims on Iraq-Al Qaeda link. O'Reilly interrupted a former Clinton administration official who tried to correct the record on O'Reilly's claim that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi constitutes a direct link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He also allowed a conservative guest to repeat without challenge other discredited claims about Iraq's supposed involvement in terrorism -- claims O'Reilly has himself cited in the past. (9/27/04) 4. O'Reilly fabricated "Paris Business Review" as source for success of French boycott. O'Reilly falsely claimed "they've lost billions of dollars in France according to 'The Paris Business Review'" due to an American boycott he advocated of French imports. Media Matters for America found no evidence of a publication named "The Paris Business Review." (4/27/04) 5. O'Reilly cited phony stats to argue that taxes on rich are excessive. O'Reilly tried to "blow off" the argument that wealthy Americans ought to pay more taxes by citing phony statistics about the tax burden the rich currently bear. (6/30/04) 6. O'Reilly confused on elementary economics. O'Reilly told a caller on his radio show, "We [the United States] have a trade deficit with everybody, because everybody wants our stuff, and we're not wild about snails" -- indicating that he doesn't know the definition of "trade deficit" and implying that the United States runs a trade surplus with France. In fact, in the first four months of 2004, the United States had a $3 billion trade deficit with France. (6/10/04) 7. O'Reilly doctored quotation to suggest Soros wished his own father dead. During his smear campaign against progressive financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros, O'Reilly doctored a 1995 quotation by Soros to make it seem as if Soros wished his own father dead. (6/1/04) 8. O'Reilly questioned if Kennedy would show up to Democratic convention ... as Kennedy spoke behind him. O'Reilly teased an upcoming segment of The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast live from the Democratic National Convention, by saying of convention speaker Senator Edward Kennedy: "When we come back, we'll let you listen to Ted Kennedy for a while, if he shows up." In fact, Kennedy had already shown up and had been speaking for several minutes, as O'Reilly need only have turned around to see. (7/27/04) 9. O'Reilly disparaged Democrats with trifecta of voter falsehoods. In a discussion about what went wrong for Democrats in the November 2 election, O'Reilly claimed that Democrats "lost votes from four years ago"; that "18- to 24[-year-old]s didn't go" to the polls; and that "[c]ommitted Republicans didn't carry the day for the president; independents did." All three claims are false. (11/4/04) 10. O'Reilly on the radio: Three lies, one broadcast. Lie No. 1: Bush tax cuts didn't create the budget deficit. Lie No. 2: "Socialistic" French, Germans, and Canadian governments tax at 80 percent. Lie No. 3: Canadian, British, and French media are "government-controlled," but Italian media is free. (7/7/04)" So who's a moonbat now?
Originally Posted By Beaumandy Elkay, thousands of words yet not a single idea how to fix anything. Just blame Bush for every possible thing happening in the world? This is why the dems have no chance in 06, 08, or any time in the next decade. This attitude is killing you guys right now and you don't even see it. Fine, tell us how your going to fight the war on terror, get unemployment lower than it is, get more people into a home they own and how your going to help the people from hurricane Katrina, all without destroying the ecomomy. If Bush is screwing everythimg up as you say in your fantasy world, this should be easy for you. As far as O'Reilly goes, he didn't lie about where he grew up, the Peabody award was an honest mistrake and the rest of your list is so biased and full of spin and half truths that it would take a day to go through them all. Point is, O'Reilly and Fox are number 1 while liberal media is losing market share and advertising dollars. Air America radio is on it's last legs and Rush keeps getting stronger month after month. If your point of view was actually changing any minds these trends would be going in the opposite direction don't you think? As my old high school hockey coach always said... it's all about the scoreboard in the end.
Originally Posted By Dirk_D_from_Oregon Well said Beau. How about an updated score? House: Majority GOP Senate: Majority GOP Presidential office: Republican The majority of Americans see right through the spin and lunacy of the Democrats like Boxer, Kennedy, Dean, Sheehan. Get a clue people or you will be on the outside looking in for a long. long time. Like my "new non offensive handle" ?
Originally Posted By RC Collins RC Collins checking in here. Higher taxes will only hurt. How about private money? FEMA didn't exist when Chicago burned to the ground, or when San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake. RC Collins
Originally Posted By Bruiser "Higher taxes will only hurt. How about private money? FEMA didn't exist when Chicago burned to the ground, or when San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake." Gee, you're right, they didn't have FEMA in the 1870's or in 1906.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Hey, if the current crop of REpublicans wants to go back to the turn of the 20th Century, the first step would be to give up the computers.
